Winter 2020 Edition
Alumni & Friends Magazine
From Idea to Shelf
OHIO鈥檚 Technology Transfer Office shepherds inventions to market
Mary Reed, BSJ 鈥90, MA 鈥93 | February 20, 2020
Share:
When Jason Trembly was replacing the wood deck at his home, he had an 鈥渁ha鈥 moment. The 51社区 Russ Professor of Mechanical Engineering and director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy and the Environment thought: Instead of using a wood-plastic composite material鈥攚hich tends to warp and oxidize and is difficult to recycle鈥攚hy not create a composite material based on coal and coal byproducts that didn鈥檛 come with these drawbacks?
He went to the lab and soon formulated a potential product that was not only workable, but also economically feasible for the construction market. His next step? Submit an invention disclosure to OHIO鈥檚 Technology Transfer Office (TTO), which guided his provisional patent application.
The whole point of tech transfer, according TTO鈥檚 Director Bob Silva, is 鈥済etting our innovations into the marketplace for the good of mankind.鈥 In Trembly鈥檚 case, it can mean sustainably using coal without releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Other efforts at TTO create therapeutics or medical devices that can save or improve lives. 51社区 has a strong track record when it comes to bringing technologies to market鈥攍icensing revenue topped $100 million over the past 10 years.
Three-time OHIO graduate Jason Trembly, BSCHE '03, MS '05, PHD '07, directs the Institute for Sustainable Energy and the Environment. Photo by Ben Wirtz Siegel, BSVC 鈥02
Today, Trembly and his team of students are continuing to test the material while the TTO negotiates rights to the technology with two companies, CONSOL Energy and Engineered Profiles. The latter is headed by mechanical engineering grad Mike Davis, BSME 鈥02, and his brother Brian Davis, BSCHE 鈥04, a fellow chemical engineering grad like Trembly, himself a three-time OHIO alumnus, having earned his doctoral degree in chemical engineering in 2007.
鈥淲e love to work with alumni (because) they make great partners,鈥 says Silva. 鈥淭hey want the school to be successful, they want to be successful, and they are easy to work with. ... Everybody wins.鈥
Silva points out that bringing a technology to market takes, on average, eight years due to the effort involved in capturing, evaluating, protecting, marketing, and licensing the technology, whether through an existing company or a startup.
Trembly鈥檚 coal-wood composite technology has a good chance of making it to market, specifically because production costs are competitive and manufacturers are already positioned to produce it.
Trembly knows that very few ideas make it from lab to market, so he鈥檚 in academia for another important reason.
鈥淲orking with the students is a really fun and rewarding part of the job,鈥 he says, 鈥淗onestly, (graduates are) our No. 1 product."
Feature photograph: Faculty and student researchers in the Russ College鈥檚 Institute for Sustainable Energy and the Environment are developing composite decking boards from coal, backed by $2 million in support from the U.S. Department of Energy and industry partners. Photo by Ashley Stottlemyer
